Thomas Scala yells at news photographers outside a relatives home on Feb. 18.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The New Dorp Beach man who police say pummeled his wife because she wouldn’t pay to get cable TV for him in the hospital now faces criminally negligent homicide charges in connection with her death in November.

Thomas Scala, 59, was indicted today, after medical evidence showed that his wife, Blanche Scala, died Nov. 27 when a weeks-old hematoma in her head re-opened because of a blunt impact she sustained the night earlier.

The day before her death, Scala attacked his wife during an argument in the couple’s residence on the 200 block of Finley Avenue, punching her in the face, court records stated. Scala, who suffers from a series of illnesses, including diabetes, had been released that day from Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze, a law enforcement source said, and he had become enraged that his wife did not visit him on Thanksgiving, Nov. 25. Also, the source said, she wouldn’t pay for him to get cable TV in his hospital room.

Scala admitted to police he had beaten her, prosecutors allege, but the hematoma wasn’t visible until after an autopsy had been conducted.

The impact, which might have been caused when Scala clobbered his wife with an object, left a "curvilinear mark" on her head, just above her hat line, authorities said.

He does not face murder charges because prosecutors couldn’t prove he had any knowledge of the hematoma, a law enforcement source said, and "there’s a stretch between that and saying he knew he was going to kill her."

At one point during the Nov. 26 episode, Mrs. Scala packed her clothes in a shopping cart and said she was leaving their Finlay Avenue home, spurring Scala to douse the garments with rubbing alcohol and hairspray, and set them ablaze, authorities allege.

Neighbors have said the couple had a history of quarreling, both inside and outside their home.